| In this dissertation, I seek to open new approaches to thinking about the relationship between literature and social change. As such, the project begins in the thick of ongoing scholarly and practitioner conversations about the role literature pedagogy might play in engendering better futures. Many teachers and scholars argue that literature pedagogy must build a more equitable and just world, and they construct literature pedagogy around this aim. This dissertation begins by examining patterns of current approaches to socially transformative literature instruction, focusing in particular on the assumptions these pedagogies make about how change happens. I argue that current socially transformative literature pedagogies treat social change as the consequence of willful, rational behavior and thus reflect critical theory's emphasis on human agency. To make space for more ways of understanding how literature might foster social change, I introduce two discourses---Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and nonrepresentational theories (NRT)---that challenge critical theory's emphasis on agency and offer alternative explanations for how change happens. I flesh these discourses out at length and argue that current approaches to socially transformative literature pedagogies are incommensurate with the insights they offer. Finally, I playfully consider how these discourses might help English teachers and English Educators imagine new ways of fostering social change through literature instruction. |
